Metso Mining and Construction: Moving to the Cloud for SAP Immediacy and Reliability

When Metso Mining and Construction sought to solidify its position as a global provider of mining and construction equipment, services, and processes, it chose Accenture as its single outsourcing provider to consolidate application and infrastructure support services and introduce cloud capabilities.

Metso Mining and Construction provides full-scope solutions for the mining and construction industries, including grinding solutions, crushing solutions, bulk materials handling solutions, expert and maintenance services, and spare and wear parts. The company employs 11,000 professionals in more than 20 countries. In 2011, net sales for Metso Mining and Construction were approximately €2.8 billion ($3.7 billion).

Metso Mining and Construction sought to solidify its position as a global provider of mining and construction equipment, services and processes by transforming the way its people worked. The availability, stability and performance of its SAP system, however, put the company’s ability to achieve its vision at risk. Looking to improve the quality and responsiveness of services for application maintenance, Metso Mining and Construction wanted to consolidate application and infrastructure support services with a single outsourcing provider—one with the power to serve its people around the globe with immediacy and reliability.

The company selected Accenture for this major transformation, leveraging their long-term relationship, Accenture’s experience and network of alliances.

The solution uses a private cloud for critical SAP elements complemented by a public cloud for non-production components. The resulting hybrid cloud service provides service-level agreements for critical requirements while allowing a “pay-per-use” approach on lower-priority requirements.

The Accenture & Cisco Business Group helped streamline hardware procurement and simplified the transformation to cloud computing, with Cisco UCS providing power and flexibility to improve overall system operations and performance. The NetApp Joint Initiative team helped tune the configuration of the FlexPod for SAP CVD during the design and build phases of the project.

Accenture’s robust methodologies for project and risk management helped achieve a successful migration. With the migration completed, Accenture now runs the SAP program as the single, end-to-end provider of application and infrastructure outsourcing services.

High Performance Delivered

The new virtual architecture and platform provide a stable environment that delivers significant improvements. Results include a 30 percent reduction in the dial-up response time for SAP Business Integration reporting and an 80–95 percent reduction in the time required to restore the SAP environment. The virtual storage approach delivers efficiencies as well, saving 10–20 percent of the volume.

Metso Mining and Construction’s new ability to work with consistent global operations attests to the success of the solution. The company now uses standardized processes, harmonized data, and a flexible, high availability SAP platform with the architecture and infrastructure to support future growth and geographic expansion.

The hybrid cloud environment supports peak use periods to help maintain optimal performance. System copies from SAP production can easily be created for use as sandbox, test, or development purposes.

As the service aggregator, Accenture holds responsibility for full service delivery, giving Metso Mining and Construction a single point of accountability for the performance of the global platform and the assurance of reliability and flexibility. Metso Mining and Construction’s close and highly collaborative relationship with Accenture continues to drive high performance with new technologies, innovative strategies, and competitive differentiators.